B-Movies with Marg: A Bucket of Blood

Another Roger Corman directed picture, 1959's A Bucket of Blood is a more cohesive movie than some of the others I've had the privilege of seeing while writing this series. That isn't to say that it is particularly good or even makes a great deal of sense - BUT, Corman knew that what he wanted to do was make a dark comedy, and unlike with say, Creature from the Haunted Sea, he didn't attempt to spoof or satirize monster movies (and spy movies, and mobster movies!). This cohesiveness serves the plot well - it's a straight forward story set in the world of beatniks, of all things.

Walter Paisley is a busboy in a beat-club. He is also a simpleton who dreams of being a great artist, but who is without talent or brains. One night, he accidentally stabs his landlady's cat through a wall (really!) and to hide the evidence, covers the cat's corpse with clay - thus creating his first ultra realistic statue. The artists at the club and their sycophants become obsessed with Walter's new found artistic genius. One further unplanned killing, this time of a human being, leads Walter down a path of artistic fame, murder, and enlarged ego, as he continues to create his exhibition.  

I love this. Walter isn't well, Igor. Also, no bats.

The late 50s saw the rise of the beat generation, and although I don't feel that Roger Corman or writer Charles B. Griffith would have hung out with too many poets in berets, they knew enough about the culture to make some interesting commentary in A Bucket of Blood. The poets are verbose and exhausting, they see themselves as outsiders but before the success of his statues, they treat Walter like a quintessential "other" without a second thought. The same can be said for most any sub-sect of society - they celebrate the different, but only their version of it. Sound familiar?

Under the surface, the film asks some other lofty questions: What is art, anyway? And why are we attracted to the gruesome side of human nature? Why would someone want a statue of a murdered man in their gallery? Well, why would we want to watch a film about a murderer?

A Bucket of Blood is hardly some intellectual thought provoker, however, not really. The ideas are there, but they go unexplored - this is a good thing. With a Corman-Classic 5 day production schedule and a minuscule budget, deeper exploration of artistic merit and the like could have easily slowed the pacing of the film to an unacceptable degree. Unlike say, The Wasp Woman, A Bucket of Blood is swiftly paced by comparison, save for the extended pieces of un-examined beat poetry.

Some of the bizarre promotional material for the film.

The tiny budget lead to some amusing visuals, which are always something I delight in seeing in a B-movie. All of Walter's victims get turned into statues by the artist/killer - the result is mannequins painted white. Certainly, not very convincing, but nothing compared to the fate of Walter himself - not to spoil the ending, but lets just say, apparently a dead man can't cover himself in clay, artistic intent or not. Also, when Walter first stabs the cat, he removes it from the wall immediately, yet the animal is completely stiff. During the stabbing through the wall, his knife bends, too.

Also, it absolutely must be said, there were no buckets of blood in the film A Bucket of Blood. None. A cooking pot is used to catch drips of blood after a body is hid in a ceiling, but that's it.

A Bucket of Blood was the best intentionally funny Corman B-movie I've seen thus far - its production values would have been improved by a real budget, and unlike many films in this series, the script had enough going for it that it wasn't just the kitsch faction that made it worth watching. For example, there was some hilarious dialogue about organic food from one of the beatniks that wouldn't be out of place in a conversation today:

Will: Have some breakfast, man.
Walter Paisley: What're ya' having?
Maxwell H. Brock: Some soy and wheat germ pancakes, organic guava nectar, calcium lactate and tomato juice, and garbanzo omelets sprinkled with smoked yeast. Join us?
Walter Paisley: No thanks... Sounds great, though! 

My favourite line in the whole movie? A sexy model, unimpressed with Walter and his new found fame tells him "Nobody asked your opinion, Walter! You're just a simple farm boy, and the rest of us are sophisticated beatniks."

-Marg, Sophisticated Beatnik.
@acuteinsomnia




Previously in this series:  Creature from the Haunted Sea, The Wasp Woman, and Attack of the Giant Leeches